I am hoping this is just a switch somewhere that I can swap out, but here goes. Drove the truck to my sons little league game, put it in park, hopped out, coached the game, when we went to leave I cranked (Crunk?) it up, went to put it in reverse, and it wouldn't budge out of park.

So I removed the lower dash piece to look for something/anything out of place, or unhooked, nothing. So I cut the truck off, turned the ignition just a little bit towards on, pulled the shifter into nuetral and crunk it up and drove home.

Has anyone else had this happen? I havent had any issues out of the truck and it is just over 70k miles.

Any help would be much appreciated (pictures too!).....

 

Do your brake lights work? Brake light switch problems are not unusual. The solenoid that releases the shifter looks for the brake lights to be on. If they don't come on the shifter does not come out of park with the engine running.

 

Is your ABS light on? On my old 95 I hooked up to a trailer that had grounding issues and something caused my ABS fuse to blow and the light to blink. With that fuse blown the truck would not shift out of park, new fuse and the problem (and light) went away.

 

The brake lights work. I found the fuse, it is no.31, the first one on it's side. I replaced it with a new 10amp fuse and as soon as it was seated it blew. I put an electric brake controller in a couple of months ago (using the factory harness and all) so I pulled that out, thinking that maybe that was the issue, but when I put a new fuse in again it popped.

Where is the brake switch? I am guessing it is under the dash somewhere, but it would be nice to see it to get an idea.

 

It's on the top of the brake pedal, under the dash.

 

Mark,
Is it just a button on the pedal? maybe it just needs adjusting? I had a similar situation on a civic with the brake lights, there was just a little button that it pushed when you pressed the brakes, something like that?

Thanks for the help.

I will check it out when I get home.

 

No, it's a switch mounted on the pedal. I don't think it's adjustable. But if your brake lights work, so does the switch. It's what turns the brake lights on.

 

on the bottom of the steering column is the shift interlock solinoid.If you unplug the soliniod ,it disables the solinoid and the shifter will work without your foot on the brake. They made it this way because if the battery is dead and the truck needs to be towed , there has to be a way of putting it in nuetral.

 

Brake lights can work and the switch still bad.

 

Tell that to GM. The Grand Prix I have you can't even take the key out without battery power.

 

The brake lights work, and I have had pretty good luck getting it into Neutral to start it, just turn the key forward a little and it will click right on down. Hopefully I will have more time this weekend to get further into it. I wish someone could post a diagram from a service manual, that would be much appreciated. (I will take pictures once I figure it out)

 

Starting around 1999, Ford changed the circuit so that the brake light circuit no longer is used directly to release the shift interlock.

The procedure to turn the ignition switch forward, then shifting into neutral to start is in your owner's manual. That's the prescribed work-around of an interlock failure.

I would suspect the BPP switch first, it is likely shorted internally.

Steve

 

Why am I not surprised? Oh right, I've worked on my mother-in-law's Buick

 

Here's the WHOLE service manual.

https://www.motorcraftservice.com/pu...20/S2OMAIN.HTM

 

Thanks Steve. Can I get the BPP from Advanced or am I going to have to go to FORD? Not that Im worried about going there, but it would be nice if I could pick this part up on Saturday instead of taking time off to head to the dealership.

What exactly does BPP stand for?